Tapping the Dream Tree by Charles De Lint

ever have hesitated.”
    â€œWhy me?” I ask him. “Why’d you come to me?”
    â€œWe’re linked,” he says. “By bad blood. The Couteaus want both of us dead.”
    You’re already dead, I’m thinking, but we’ve already covered that and it didn’t get me any closer to understanding what he’s talking about.
    But I can see that ghostly wheel now, half here, so close we can almost reach out and grab one of the joints of its frame, half lost in a steaming mist.
    â€œAnd besides,” he says. “We’re already there.”
    He points to a seat shared by a harlequin and something truly weird: a man with the head of a quarter moon, a blue moon, like something out of a kid’s book. A man in the moon with Sammy’s features. And I can make out my own features, too, under the harlequin’s white makeup.
    â€œWhat’s with the moon head?” I ask him.
    â€œYou know,” he says. “Once in a … I always wanted to be lucky. Different. The guy who comes and you don’t know what to expect, maybe good, maybe bad, but it’ll shake up your world and make some new ones because whether you like it or not, there’s a big change coming. I don’t want to be what I am, some loser you can’t remember as soon as I walk out the door.”
    â€œI never wanted to be a harlequin,” I say.
    He smiles, it’s like a child’s smile this time, so simple and all encompassing, the whole world smiling with you.
    â€œSpyboy was a kind of clown,” he says.
    â€œSo what does that say about me?”
    â€œThat you like to see people happy. Same as me. Look at us.” He points at the pair again. “Don’t we make you smile?”
    I’m feeling a little disoriented, dizzy almost, which is strange, though not the strangest thing to happen to me tonight. Still, I’ve always been good with heights, so this flicker of vertigo disturbs me, more than the wheel and Sammy’s story, go figure.
    â€œCome on,” he says.
    I don’t know why I do it, but I jump with him, off the roof, grab hold of the wheel’s frame, climb down toward where we’re already sitting, Spyboy and the Blue Moon.
    Only maybe I don’t jump. Maybe I stand there and watch him fall, and then I go home. But I can’t get it out of my head, what he told me, the way he just jumped, the height of the building, how I never heard him land on the pavement below. I wonder if someone can die twice, except there’s no body this time, waiting for me when I step out of the door and into the alleyway. Maybe there wasn’t when the Couteaus had him shot either.
    The next day I go to work, walk in the back door of the restaurant, same as always. Raul looks up when I come in. He waits until I take off my jacket, put on an apron, start in to work on the small mountain of pots and dishes that’ve accumulated since I was last standing here at the sink.
    â€œThere was a guy looking for you after you left yesterday,” he says.
    Sammy, I think. I want to forget all about what maybe happened last night, but the thoughts keep coming back like bad pennies.
    â€œDid he say what he wanted?” I ask, curious as to what Sammy might have said, still looking for a clue, trying to figure him out, where he went when he jumped off that roof.
    Raul shakes his head. “Didn’t say much of anything. He was big guy, mean looking. Talked a little like François, only not so much. Same accent, you know?”
    I go cold at that little piece of news.
    I’ll tell you the truth, I never thought the Couteaus would bother to track me down. Where was the percentage? I didn’t rip them off like Sammy, I’ve kept my mouth shut all along, stayed low, working shit jobs, minded my own business. But I guess just walking away was insult enough for them.
    â€œHe say anything about coming back?” I ask.
    Raul shrugged. “I